Overview

Retrospectives are a collection of former students’ accounts of their study experiences. These are personal accounts and should not be seen, nor intended as objective assessments of any given course. Nonetheless, they should aim to be informative and provide an “insider view”.

Anyone is welcome to contribute their account, and we, as well of the wider readership thank you for your
generous contributions! The style and content of
Retrospectives is very open, and pieces can range from short
commentaries to longer essays. To help make sure these are as useful as possible, we have put together a short
set of guidelines.

Guidelines

Style and Length:We are completely open to any writing style! This is a personal piece and we will only edit spelling and grammatical errors if need be. You should provide the full course title and the title you wish to give to your Retrospective. If it is a longer piece, please make sure to divide it up using appropriate subheadings. Your retrospective can be as long as you wish and do feel free to go into detail. However it should be at least 300 words long.

Language:
As the website is currently only available in English please write in English. Whilst you can be critical of the institution that you attended or anything that happened during your studies, we would kindly ask you to refrain from using any bad language or making reference to anything that might be seen as offensive. Criticism should also aim to be constructive and balanced, in order to allow for readers to make up their own minds.

Content:
The substance of what you say is up to you. Nonetheless please keep in mind that courses change slightly over time and it would in all likelihood be of limited use to describe or comment on anything that is very specific, but likely to have changed since you attended. Also it is best to include those things that you wouldn't find in an official prospectus. At the end of your piece, please provide a bullet point style summary of the advantages and disadvantages. For reference just have a look at any existing Retrospectives online. To help you along, below are a few elements that you might wish to address in your writing:

your academic and/or professional background prior to taking the course

why you ended up choosing the training provider that you attended

the course content and choice of course units

the location

examinations and assessment process

teaching quality

atmosphere on the course and the institution

any tips and hints

anything else you think could be helpful!

As an option, provide your email address via which readers can get in touch.

Practical Steps

1. Make sure you are logged in. Click the link at the bottom to open the Contribute Your Retrospective window.

2.Choose the Category (in this case the Training Provider or Organisation) in which your Retrospective should appear in. If the Training Provider or Organisation is not yet listed, please let us know and we will add it for you.

example

3.Add a Title. For courses, this should consist of the course or degree title that you attended, followed by a title of your own choosing. For example, a degree course should be entered as: “MSc Urban Development – Cities, Poverty and its Alleviation”. An internship should include the organisation’s name as in the example below.

example

4. In the “Introductory Text” field specify your year of graduation, followed by a line break. You can now copy and paste a maximum of around 200 words of your Retrospective. This is the text readers see when your Retrospective is not in full view.

PLEASE NOTE: You can edit online but we strongly recommend you write your Retrospective using a word processor first, and then copy and paste your text.

example

5. You can now add the rest of your Retrospective into the “Main Text” field.

example

6. Now that you are done either save your Retrospective or cancel .

7. Simply wait for us to review and publish your Retrospective. This will usually take less than 2 days during weekdays. As an option, if you wish to include any pictures of you or your experience, please send them to Retrospectives@Studying-Development.org, including the Title of the Retrospective in the subject line, and any instructions as to where they should appear.

If you wish to edit your Retrospective you can do so as soon as it is published by logging in and then navigating to the item in question. Open your Retrospective in full view and click on the edit button . Only your items will have the edit button next to it.